We Ate Dinner Outside Our Hotel Room While Our Baby Slept

There are many things you expect to change after having children.

Your weekends. Your holidays. Your social life. Your ability to finish a hot drink while it is still hot.

But nothing quite prepares you for how much baby sleep can take over your entire life.

In this episode of Too Tired Mums, I speak with Jassmin about one of the most emotionally loaded topics in early parenthood: sleep.

More specifically, sleep training, co-sleeping, broken nights — and the ridiculous things tired parents end up doing to protect bedtime.

For Jassmin, sleep training became a way to regain some order after months of sleepless nights. For me, co-sleeping happened almost by accident, after one “rookie mistake” of letting my child onto my bed.

Two very different routes. Two very tired mums.

When baby sleep becomes the main character

Before children, Jassmin remembers sleeping at a fairly regular hour — around 11pm.

These days, her bedtime has moved much earlier, to 9pm. In fact, she jokes in the episode that her aim is to eventually sleep at 7pm.

But that early-bedtime life did not happen overnight.

After having her son 11 years ago, Jassmin went through months of broken sleep while trying to return to work and function like a normal human being. Anyone who has done the newborn-to-working-parent transition will know how brutal that combination can be.

No matter how tired you are, you are still expected to think, work, reply to emails, attend meetings, make decisions, and then go home to a second shift: taking care of your baby.

At some point, Jassmin realised this mode of operating was not sustainable.

So she and her husband built a routine around their son’s sleep. But as many parents know, once you commit to a baby sleep routine, it does not just shape the baby’s life. It starts running the whole household.

For almost a year, their evenings revolved around the baby monitor.

Every movement became a question. Was he waking up? Was he going to cry? Whose turn was it to go in? Who went in last?

The hotel room dinner situation

This strict sleep schedule extended even when they travelled.

If their son had to sleep at 7pm, the family needed to be back at the hotel by 5pm.

That’s the thing about sleep training. It leaves very little room for spontaneity. Everything has to run like clockwork for the routine to hold. I suppose those who thrive on structure may find this more manageable than the free-spirited folks.

Sometimes, their son would have his dinner, shower and bedtime routine first. If the adults had not eaten by then, they would order room service.

Then, once he was asleep inside the hotel room, Jassmin and her husband would step outside, close the door, and sit in the corridor while waiting for food to arrive.

People walking past would ask if they were locked out.

Maybe this needs a door sign: “Sleep training in progress.”

Romance, but make it hotel bathroom

Baby sleep does not just affect dinner. It affects couple time too.

When your child is asleep in the same hotel room, your options become extremely limited. You cannot switch on all the lights. You cannot talk too loudly. You cannot freely watch TV. And any attempt at intimacy has to be carefully negotiated around a sleeping child.

At one point, Jassmin and her husband even tried to create a romantic moment in the bathroom.

Dim lights. Closed door. Baby asleep outside.

Not exactly the hotel-room fantasy anyone pictures before having children, but early parenthood does this to you. Suddenly, privacy is so rare that even 10 uninterrupted minutes in a bathroom can feel like luxury.

My co-sleeping route

My experience was the opposite of Jassmin’s.

I never considered sleep training, partly because my circumstances did not allow for it.

We were living with my in-laws then, and only had one room to work with. My child slept in a cot in the same room as us for a while.

During her infant months, there would always be middle-of-the-night wakeups and the need to feed or soothe her. Putting my baby back in the cot and hoping she’d go back to sleep was one of the toughest games to play.

So I totally understand why some parents turn to sleep training. When you are dead tired, it is incredibly hard to keep waking up to tend to your baby.

At some point, I succumbed and let my baby sleep between me and my husband.

Nothing seemed to relax her more than being close to us. Pure, physical warmth and comfort.

And from then on, there was no turning back. It was co-sleeping all the way. When we were next to each other, my baby stirred less and slept more.

Of course, safe sleep guidelines warn against bed-sharing with infants because of the risk of sleep-related accidents. But in that fog of exhaustion, co-sleeping became the choice that helped everyone get through the night.

With co-sleeping and the physical interdependency it builds, it can be hard to imagine nights without your child in your bed.

But 10 years later, I’m happy to report that my children — who both co-slept with me for a couple of years each — have learned to sleep independently, in their own room. I have learnt to sleep without them too.

That’s the strange thing about parenting phases. When you are in them, they feel endless. Then one day, somehow, they pass.

Maybe the kids will be fine anyway

The thing about baby sleep is that everyone has an opinion.

Sleep train. Don’t sleep train. Never co-sleep. Co-sleeping is natural. Stick to a routine. Follow your child’s cues.

No wonder tired parents feel like they are always doing something wrong.

But this conversation with Jassmin reminded me of this very millennial mantra: you do you.

For some families, sleep training restores sanity. For others, co-sleeping becomes the only practical option. And for many of us, the “method” is simply whatever gets everyone through the night.

So if your baby sleeps beautifully in a cot, great.

If your child somehow ended up in your bed and stayed there for years, you are not alone.

And if you have ever sat outside a hotel room eating dinner because your baby was asleep inside, congratulations.

You were not locked out.

You were just a very, very tired parent doing your best.

Watch the Too Tired Mums episode here.

Too Tired Mums is The Singapore Women’s Weekly’s original talk show series that gives motherhood its most honest voice — where real mums open up about the things we don’t always say out loud, reminding us that we’re never truly alone.

Host: Estelle Low
Guest: Jassmin Vaanee Peter-Berntzen
Producer: Maya Eman
Art director: Michelle Lee
Videography, studio setup and editing: Studio+65
Makeup: Dorcas Yam, using Dior
Hairstyling: Pattama Phumriew, using Schwarzkopf Osis+
Fashion styling: Angela Chu
Outfits: Top on Estelle, Etro